Long, Silent Night

            The old carol boasts with great promise that there is “Joy to the World!” Songs burst forth with a gladness of heart.   Everywhere you turn there are happy faces, smiling brightly.  People shine this time of year, as the candle of life inside them can be seen through the windows of their eyes, as an outward expression of the hope they carry within.  Busy people hustle and bustle the streets in a scurry to accomplish every detail of preparations.  There are many gifts to purchase.  There is so much food to start cooking.  Cookies and candy are being made and passed out, while Christmas cards fly round about the country as we remember each other and spread the news of our Savior’s birth.  There is so much to do!  Christmas brings the sweet sounds of love, life, and laughter as we celebrate the holiday together.

            Is it a celebration to everyone?

            To many this year, Christmas bells don’t ring forth with songs of joy.

            There are many people in the world today that face a long, and lonely silent night during Christmas Eve.  Furthermore, Christmas day may not be any brighter.  In many cases, the season of hope and joy only exaggerate the remembrances of pain and loss, things that are heightened to the greatest pinnacle like a giant mountain before us.  Christmas brings the most obvious moments of pain being noticed, as a mountain in front of us that seems impossible to be moved.   The holiday brings so much emotion with it.  There is no time of the year to bring love and warmth to people like Christmas, but there is also no other time of the year that reminds us of our voids and losses in such a powerful way as well.  I want to write a post specifically to those that hurt the worst at this time.  I want to write to you because I know your pain.  I was there.  I felt it.  I lived it.  I breathed it.  You are not alone.

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            I remember it so clearly.  It was a dark and lonely night.  The evening blue hues were fading into black, as I was off for the afternoon, and the workday of others was drawing to a close. The lights of the tree were shining so brightly.  Each and every twinkle reminded me of the light that I had lost.  The ornaments she loved to hang on branches with care, now only served as icons of tragedy, and with them, I felt a pain I could not recover from.  The kids were off in their own world of wonder.  Christmas would bring a certain moment of peace and good will toward them.  They still wanted, and were very much anticipating, the excitement and wonder of the moment. They were healing faster than I. They still drove to embrace Christmas with a childlike faith and expectation, something I didn’t wish to steal or take away from them.  To me, however, I wished the heavy blanket of darkness would just overshadow me and choke the life free from my lungs.  I sat there in that chair as the lights contrasted such sharp brightness against the blackness of despair.  It was very hard to breathe, hard to think, and hard to control my emotions.  I still can remember the music playing as if it played but yesterday.  A Casting Crowns melody that spoke and expressed exactly what I felt.  I could hardly contain myself.  There was someone else out there that knew my pain.

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet their songs repeat
Of peace on earth good will to men

And the bells are ringing (peace on earth)
Like a choir they're singing (peace on earth)
In my heart I hear them (peace on earth)
Peace on earth, good will to men

And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men

            I remember it so vividly.  That deep and meaningful melody played while I sat there silent in the approaching darkness.  The next page turned.  There was barely enough light to make out or discern the printed words on the bound set of paper. I read the book that seemed like it was written just for me.  As a story of one who knew my pain, the lifeless words of ink on pulp became alive and spoke to me in ways that others could not.  I read about man who had lost also, his story the only bittersweet consolation I could find.  His tale both broke me and tried to heal me at the same time.  I read the loss of another.  I heard the words of one who understood me.  I read about the pain I felt deep within the insides my own soul.  The author connected with me.  He knew what I felt.  I wasn’t alone, and when I faced him, it was easier to grieve with for his loss than grieve for my own.

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            Not a man but a menace, a phantom that came subtly to haunt and torture me now asked to overtake my melancholy soul. With undetected swiftness it wove it’s greedy coils around me before I knew of its presence.  A phantom called grief… I knew him well, for he would come to me each day, each night.  When the day’s shift ended in sundown, forebodings of night’s shadows were ever so long and lonely, calling out premonitions of pain.  They pushed their motives and intentions , marching on and into me, not caring of my reactions or repercussions.  The grief that chased and haunted me could not be fled from any longer.  What I could endure on an ordinary day I could not withstand on a holiday, especially this one, the first without her.  Grief grew uglier, more hideous and menacing with each day closing in on Christmas.  Now, in this moment, I looked it square in the eye.  Would I be able to survive this pain and torture?  I fail to breathe.

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            I heard the songs, those melodies of joy turned sour in my stomach.  I read the pages of the only one who could identify with what I felt inside. The tears rolled down my cheek, no attempt was made to stop them or remove them.  I allowed the dam to break inside me.  The water now flowed freely.  How could I celebrate the holiday that exposed my now exponential grief and pain?  How could one have a “merry” Christmas with my loss so obviously piercing everything inside of me?  Was there truly “peace on earth?”  There certainly was none in my world.

            Looking back on that night, I return to the feelings that were owned by it, impressions nobody could understand or comprehend without being in that spot themselves.  That, in a genuine simplicity, is how I know, feel, and understand your pain.  I know your pain because I have been there.  I know how you feel because I lived that first Christmas in which I felt all alone in a crowded world around me.  On that day, Christmas was not the joyful celebration that all people around seemed to share.  It wasn’t for me, and it isn’t for you.  For you, it is a darkness that has no way out, and all you want is relief from the sting inside that causes such hurt.

            Can there be peace on earth?

            Can there be peace in your heart?

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

            I am not going to sit and write today about ten steps to finding peace and joy on Christmas day.  I don’t intend to tell you that things will be ok. I’m not going to write clichés about how things will be better, because I’ve been in your shoes, and I know that none of that will help.  Instead, I identify with you.  You are experiencing a pain that others cannot comprehend.  It hurts, and it is ok to hurt.  I want to put my arm around your shoulder and hurt with you for a moment.  It is ok.  Grief is difficult. My advice is to let it run its course.  To try to stop grief is futile.  It will bite you back hard in the long run if you don't allow the process to take place.  I can tell you that it will get better (because it does), but that isn’t what you need to hear today, tonight.  You are in a place that you aren’t sure how to climb out of, and so instead, I’ll just jump right in with you.

            What I can do is point you to the one who can help.  Not for a scripture to “fix” you or “heal” you, or a quote that will inspire you.  Nope, you might not even want to consider terms or things such as those.  I know that I was resistant to anyone who even tried to make me “better” with something as silly as a slap on the back or a trite word of encouragement.  Instead, I want to show you a Jesus who can identify with you.  

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            Fully God and fully man, Jesus left eternity, choosing to humble Himself as a child.  The King and Savior of the world, came quietly to the men and women He knew ahead of time would reject Him.  He came as a child, one that had no place to enter the world but a stable.  There was no nurse, no support group, no advice from an older family member.  Instead, the lonely shelter of a crude animal’s dwelling was all they had, where I can imagine a young mother and a stepdad were both scared of what might happen.  They were the talk of the town, as an unwed young woman certainly looked anything but pure and holy.  Do you feel like an outcast?  Christ knows how you feel.

            It doesn’t stop there.  Not only did Christ leave the eternal relms of glory with the Father to come to save a corrupt and crooked world, but that was only the beginning of the hurt they both would feel.  Do you think it was easy for Christ to save us?  Do you think that just because He was God that He was immune to the feel of emotional, mental, and psychological pain? Look how the Bible describes the Christ:

Isaiah 53:1-5

Who hath believed our report?

and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,

and as a root out of a dry ground:

he hath no form nor comeliness;

and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:

and we hid as it were our faces from him;

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs,

and carried our sorrows:

yet we did esteem him stricken,

smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions,

he was bruised for our iniquities:

the chastisement of our peace was upon him;

and with his stripes we are healed.

            If there is an emotion you feel, Christ has felt it.  He took everything upon Himself on the cross.  The shame you have when you fall short and sin… Christ felt it.  Did He feel rejection? He felt rejection on a level that you and I cannot fathom.  He was hit and slapped in the face.  He knows what it feels like to be betrayed.  As an adult, He didn’t have a place to call his home. He had others mock Him.  His closest friends fled from Him in His most needed moments.  If there is a suffering that you experienced or could think of, Jesus has already felt the hurt and pain from it.  

            Did Jesus know loss?  Most people know the shortest verse in the Bible. It often goes unnoticed by anything but that.  The simple two word verse is found in the book of John.  I want to back up a little bit and get the whole context of the short phrase.

John 11:33-36

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

            It is hard to really comprehend how the God of all the universe could be touched by the same emotions that we all share, but it is true.  “Jesus wept.”  It is a fundamental truth.  The Jesus we serve had such sorrow for the loss of His friend, that he not only cried, but wept. 

            How many of us are in that place today.

            Do Christmas bells ring where you stand?

            Taking things a step further, this same Jesus who come into the world so humbly and so quietly, was also the focal point of another, His Heavenly Father.  We often think of the sacrifices that Jesus made.  How he was so emotionally disturbed in the garden before His arrest that in Luke 22:44 the Bible says “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Yes, Christ felt pain, but what about His Father?

            Think of this Heavenly Father for a moment.  The only way that the creation of man could be saved was through the blood of Jesus, His son.  Though only for a short duration, when the sin of the world was placed on Christ’s body on the cross, there was a seperation between Father and Son that we cannot truly understand.  An eternal bond was somehow broken.  Christ called out to His Father asking why He was forsaken by Him. The sin was a barrier. Christ was the sacrificial lamb. It was an agonizing place for them both.

            Have you lost a child?  So has God.  Have you lost a parent?  In a way, Christ has too.  Do you feel abandoned in a world where your spouse has passed away?  God’s Word describes the bride of Christ as the church… and that wife is the exact special treasure He died for.  He knows the separation of the covenant of marriage through death. He lived it.  He breathed it.  He knows where you are.

            This may be your first Christmas without that special someone in your life.  Maybe it took you by surprise, not knowing how hard it would be for you. Maybe you were unprepared. Maybe you are in denial. Maybe you are locked in that place like I was, that place where it seems that there is no air left to breathe, and you are choking to death in pain. I have one word of consolation for you where you are:

Look up.  The one who knows exactly how you feel is waiting for you.  

His name is Jesus.  His hand is waiting, His arms are opened.

            If for no other reason, “peace on earth” can in fact dwell in your heart, even this very Christmas day.  No matter how bad you have lost, no matter what your situation is, no matter how hard your grief feels, there still is hope tonight for your life to have peace. Jesus is that peace, and just like He was there for me…

            He is right there for you too. Embrace Him. He will hold your heart and tears. He will hold you. You will never be the same.

By Chuck Carr